That Blighted Reach!

A couple of weekends ago I was at HandyCon. I feel very lucky to have this really first rate con more or less on the doorstep (an hour's drive away in Milton Keynes – handy indeed). Not only is it very well organised, friendly, and fun, it also runs four times a year!

Anyway, the main event for me was a pre-arranged game of Arcs: the Blighted Reach. My copy of BR had been sitting untouched and taking up up a lot of space on my shelves, ever since it arrived when the Kickstarter rewards shipped. I was daunted by the thing, to be honest, that huge box full of cards and bits and rules. I felt like I ought to love it, but was not at all sure that I would.

So on HandyCon's Saturday morning I duly met up with Ted and Arthur, both very experienced BR players as was obvious from the host of yellow stickers on their BR box, one for eacg play! They did a great job of explaining the rules to be, and helping me through my first few turns. But boy this game is a beast! I don't have great eyesight and this is a game that has a lot of cards in play, many of which are upside down at the other side of the board, not to mention the Edict cards which are slipped into a little book where they were even less accessible to me. There are quite a few games these days where it helps a lot to be able to read small text upside down at a distance. It's quite a trope – build a tableau of cards, each of which subtly or not so subtly changes the rules – but BR strikes me as the apotheosis of this style of gaming

It was a fun experience – mainly because Ted and Arthur went out of their way to make it so. But probably not one I wish to repeat. And certainly not one I need to own (especially given the size of the box!) So when I got home BR went straight up on the BGG Marketplace, and sold almost immediately. It felt like a burden lifted.

(To be clear, I still own, and love, the Arcs base game, and the Leaders and Lore mini expansion.)